making a cold cut hardie out of wood splitting wedge

[meco3hp]

Hello,
I've got a couple of wood splitting wedges that have had some fair size chunks knocked off of the hammer end. If I used a cutoff saw to cut the bad ends off and then welded a hardie shank onto them would they be worth the effort? I figure I'd have to reharden the cutting edge. I'm just trying to make a useful tool out of a piece of scrap. They wouldn't be good for splitting wood after I cut the bad end off, as they would be way too short for splitting any more. I'm pretty sure these are old wedges and not some new chinese junk. I'd swear the chinese ones are cast!

[frogvalley]

Let me know how that turns out. I believe that will work fine for a cutoff hardie, I am planning to do the same, with one exception, to one of my extra/old ones. My plan is to forge the head or hammer end to fit the hardie hole so it will be one piece and a little shorter. Wedges are too tall as is, so a little shorter is great. Welding on a shank will work fine too, all of my hardy tools are homemade, most of them welded shanks that were cut and forged from other stock, some are one piece forgings formerly axles or solid driveshafts.

Definitely reharden them, but not too hard, softer is better , it will deform eventually but can be reforged, but if it chips , that metal is gone/lost. I do a flyby night hardening on mine, I work them until done, then just let it cool until just barely red and quench.

So anyway...

[eander4]

I know that Ken Scharabok (Tennessee smith) has done this on a number of occassions, using square tubing for the shank, so it is definately do-able and seems to hold up pretty well.

I would think that if you wrap the cutting end with a wet towel prior to welding, you should be able to avoid the heat transferance that would require rehardening. Of course, that assumes you don't need to anneal the piece to cut it in the first place.

You might want to ask Ken how he goes about it. He's a very accessible fella who posts over on anvilfire fairly often. He also has an eBay store "Poor Boy Balcksmithing tools" with "scharabo" as his seller ID.

Good Luck!
Eric

[meco3hp]

Hello,
I'm planning to use a cut off saw to cut it. The first one that I'm wanting to do is only about 5" long (it's been well used). After I cut the bad end off I'm going to have about 4" left. Thats a good idea about the wet towel. I'll have to let you know how it goes.

[ThomasPowers]

Most of the wedges I have owned are pretty soft and you would probably more need to harden them than to worry about drawing the temper on them!

Thomas

[bruce wilcock]

Thomas is on the money ,we forge wood splitting wedges and only use 20 carbon ,for stone wedges we use 40 or en8 this will harden but we sell the wedges ,as forged, no heat treat,

[Strine]

I once made a wedge out of ordinary MS. It was about 6" wide at the cutting edge with about a 2" square target on the blunt end to hit with a maul. MS was all that was available at this particular time of desper...er need. It has served me extremely well over the years and by the way is quite blunt. My point is that all those before me have probably known that MS would be OK and I'd reckon your wedge would be the same. ie I agree with the others here.

[Swamp Fox]

You said COLD cut at the beginning.

Why not make this tool and just use it as a hot cut? Doesn't take much to cut a piece of HOT metal.